# Environmental Health MethodologicAl, Training, and Teaching EnterpRiSe (EH MATTERS)

> **NIH NIH R25** · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · 2021 · $108,000

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Environmental hazards are more likely to be located near low-income communities of color. These hazards
are amplified by negative socioeconomic and health factors, including higher rates of chronic diseases, lack of
access to healthy foods, substandard housing, racism, poverty, unemployment, lack of greenspace, community
violence, and zoning incompatibilities. Understanding the role of environmental health in observed community
disparities is fundamentally important to helping communities deliver on the promise of an improved quality of
life for its people. Direct community engagement in identifying, developing, and evaluating these relationships
is critical to improving health equity. To help develop sustainable solutions, we propose to launch the
“Environmental Health MethodologicAl, Training, and Teaching EnterpRiSe” (EH MATTERS) program at USC.
EH MATTERS will (1) help foster a new generation of diverse environmental health scientists to improve the
current environmental landscape that contributes to disparate health burdens; (2) develop approaches to
identify and evaluate environmental health disparities; (3) build skills in community-engaged research and
research translation to improve public health. EH MATTERS will leverage the diverse student body at the
University of Southern California to engage students in robust and diverse interdisciplinary training and
research experiences. This will provide them with needed skills to meaningfully contribute to improving
community environmental health status through an integrated research and education training program.
Outcomes from these efforts will ignite interest in key areas of health research that disproportionately impact
communities of color. Through successive two-year training cycles, up to half a dozen motivated
undergraduate students per year from underrepresented minority groups (URGs) will be enrolled into a two-
year program to develop the tools needed to ultimately build environmental social capital in their respective
neighborhoods and communities. EH MATTERS is built upon a framework of didactic seminars, hands-on
workshops, skill-building training sessions, and direct field observation activities with resilient community-based
organizations across the diverse Southern California environment. A dedicated team of skilled faculty have
been assembled to provide trainees with a broad array of critical tools to advance knowledge and skillsets to
help make a difference in community environmental health. With a strong tradition of individualized student
mentorship and research grant support in environmental epidemiology, environmental exposure research,
health disparities and community-engaged participatory research, EH MATTERS faculty and staff will inform,
inspire, and engage trainees to acquire the skills needed to re-balance some of the environmental disparities
present in impacted communities of color.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10153783
- **Project number:** 5R25ES031867-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Edward Avol
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $108,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-05-01 → 2025-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10153783

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10153783, Environmental Health MethodologicAl, Training, and Teaching EnterpRiSe (EH MATTERS) (5R25ES031867-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10153783. Licensed CC0.

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